"GENTLEMEN,--I have now the honour to propose the toast of the evening--the health of our distinguished fellow-countryman, our guest, Louis Honoré Fréchette, the poet of Canada, crowned by the Academy of France. You have heard, gentlemen, the loud hurrah of all Canada in honour of one of her children, and here, perhaps, I might cease speaking. Nothing that I might say could increase the glad strength of the general voice of the country, when the news arrived here that the grand arena of literature, the French Academy, an institution whose life is counted by centuries, and which is without equal in the world, that great interpreter and infallible judge of the difficulties, the beauties and the genius of the French language, had given one of its annual prizes, and perhaps the finest of all--the prize of poetry--to one of our countrymen. I could never fittingly express or depict the sentiments of pride and joy felt by all lovers of literature in this country--I may add of all good Canadians--when the news came from beyond the ocean, from that sacred France, mother of civilization; from fairy Paris, capital of the Muses, that Mr. Fréchette had been crowned! But, as Chairman of this happy reunion, at the risk of but faintly re-echoing the general sentiment, I must at least try to express my feelings in proposing this toast. The emotions which I feel are of a dual nature, that of friendship and of patriotism, and, as friendship is nearer to the heart, so I gave that feeling the first place. The speaker here referred to his collegiate days in the Seminary of Quebec, where he met Mr. Fréchette, and in preparing himself for the battle of life, had won the friendship of the Canadian poet. He alluded to Mr. Fréchette's first efforts in verse, and had judged his early attempts, and in referring to his (the Judge's) own literary works at the time, the speaker said that the line of Boileau might be applied to him, "'Pour lui, Phoebus est sourd et Pégase est rétif.'